Surya Ganguly wins Bangkok Open

4/20/2016 – Surya Shekhar Ganguly is the winner of the 16. Bangkok Chess Club Open. After beating Loek Van Wely in the final round Ganguly had 7.5/9 points and shared first place with Spanish GM Francisco Vallejo Pons, who had won against Nigel Short in the final round. But Ganguly had the better tie-break and this helped him to win the tournament.

Find the right combination! ChessBase 15 program + new Mega Database 2019 with 7.6 million games and more than 70,000 master analyses. Plus ChessBase Magazine (DVD + magazine) and CB Premium membership for 1 year!

An ever growing number of European grandmasters like to come to Bangkok in Spring to take part in the Bangkok Chess Open, which is organised by the Bangkok Chess Club. For the sixteenth edition of the tournament a number of strong European grandmasters travelled to Bangkok, among them Francisco Vallejo Pons, Loek Van Wely, Benjamin Bok, Nigel Short, and Jan Gustafsson. The strongest player from Asia was Indian grandmaster Surya Shekhar Ganguly. A lot of attention also focused on 15-year old Anton Smirnov, who is considered to be Australia's greatest talent.

In the final round Smirnov (right) had to play against German GM Jan Gustafsson.
Smirnov lost and finished with 6.0/9.

Benjamin Bok (White) before his game against Ildar Khairullin

It was Loek Van Wely who had the best start into the tournament - he won his first five games. After conceding his first draw in round six Gustafsson caught up with him. In round seven Gustafsson and Van Wely drew against each other which allowed a number of other players to advance to the top of the table. One of them was Francisco Vallejo Pons who played a brilliant attacking game against the Najdorf.

In round eight Jan Gustafsson lost against Ildar Khairullin while all other players in the leading group drew their games and thus five players were entering the final round with 6.5/8. In the last round Ganguly defeated Van Wely while Vallejo Pons won against Nigel Short. But the relevant tie-break was in favor of Ganguly who then became official winner of the Bangkok Open.

See also

11/28/2018 – The moment we've all been waiting for! Live games (for Premium members) from the 2018 World Championship match in London. Every two games will be followed by a rest day until Game 12 (if necessary) on November 26th which will be preceded by an additional rest day. All rounds start at 15:00 UT (London time) / 16:00 CEST / 10:00 EST. If needed there would be a rapid tiebreak match on Wednesday, November 28th. | Photos: Patricia Claros

See also

8/27/2018 – Live games and commentary from Saint Louis! Fabiano Caruana, Magnus Carlsen and Levon Aronian tied for first place, while Caruana also tied for fourth place in the Grand Chess Tour standings with Wesley So, forcing a playoff match to be held on Tuesday. | Graphic: Saint Louis Chess Club

Video

On this 60 mins video we are going to concentrate on a simple, very solid idea in the main line Scandinavian, which even Magnus Carlsen has used to win games. Black focusses on making his life easy in the opening and forces White to work very hard to get advantage – but it is doubtful if White can get an advantage. Club players are always on the lookout for effective, time-saving solutions and here we have just that. Accompany FIDE Senior Trainer and IM Andrew Martin on this 60 mins video. You can learn a new opening system in 60 mins and start to play it with confidence on the very same day!